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Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

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The mission "Devil's Advocate." Getting to take the helm of the infamous Queen Anne's Revenge and all forty of her guns.

Topped when you get to steal a Portuguese Man of War and get to put all its awesome firepower to use. The ship ultimately goes on to become Black Bart's Royal Fortune. For added awesome value, you get to defeat that ship in the final sequence of the game, no matter how easy or hard it is for the player.

The fact that the Animus doesn't desynch if Edward dives off of the Jackdaw, swims towards an enemy ship, boards and captures it single-handedly — thereby foregoing the need for a naval combat against that ship — means that it's entirely possible that he actually did this at least once!

Really, the sheer amount of freedom you have in this game. Going purely by the Animus's mechanics, it elevates Edward's reputation far above what's stated. In his youth, he could dive deep in a diving bell, rob chests from under the shadows of sharks and live to tell the tale. And he's harpooned Great White Sharks and whales. And he's defeated several legendary ships, amongst many other lesser ones.

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Edward Kenway is a self-trained pirate able to completely bluff Templars as he uses hidden blades for the first time.

Props to Benjamin Hornigold who, in Kingston, has one glimpse of the Jackdaw and immediately knows that Edward is actively spying on him and the other Templars, then immediately calls him out.

Taking down a Legendary ship. Even with a fully upgraded Jackdaw, you can't just trade broadside volleys with them; you have to outmaneuver them instead. In rough order of badassery, we have:

The HMS Prince, the weakest of the four fights, is nonetheless a titan who will slaughter any mid-to-high level ship that gets too close. Getting within several dozen miles of it will trigger a thick, blinding fog in which it will hide. While you're struggling to figure out where it is, it will rain down powerful mortars on you. The fog, combined with its ragged appearance, sends the superstitious crew into pants-wetting terror.

La Dama Negra is a ship you fight in a heavy rainstorm. It's got heavy souped-up broadside volleys always lit aflame, and powerful mortars, which not only do not leave a targeting reticle to warn you, but The Black Lady will lead its shots, meaning you're toast if you're not very good at swerving and turning on a dime. The cherry on top? This ship's got ultra thick armor on its sides and front. Attempting to hit it in those locations will trigger a text straight-up telling the player that the sides of the ship are invulnerable.

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One of two candidates for hardest fight is the Twins, properly called the HMS Fearless and its sister ship The Royal Sovereign. Individually, they've got thinner skin than the others, but that's because you fight them at the same time. The two are lightning fast, as they have to be since their tactic of choice is to flank you from either side and hit you with a double serving of their over-cranked broadside shots. Getting caught between them is certain death. Think you can make the fight easier by hammering one until it's down? The other one will respond by going nuts, lighting itself on fire and attempting to run you down and ram into you, all the while pelting you with heavy cannon shots.

The one most would say is the queen of them all, however, is El Impoluto. This ship seems to aggressively combine the tactics used by the others to become an utter nightmare. It moves at impossible speeds, a fact it will use to chase you down and ram you into a broken mess. Once it hits, taking out an entire life bar if you can't swerve fast enough, it will turn on its heel, run back across the sea, and then come in for another run, rinsing and repeating until you are dead. You can try to deter it from its chase with fire barrels, but it's fast enough to just go around them and get you anyway. The likelier scenario however, is it hitting you with forward cannons while busting straight through the barrels and soaking up the damage. Which it can do because it is not only lightning fast, but tough as a motherfucker. Fighting this ship, crewed by rum-crazed lunatics determined to park their ship on top of yours, is an exercise in aggression and submission. Once you've beaten this ship, you're rewarded with its charged-up ram attack as reward.

"In honest service there are thin commons, low wages, and hard labour. Yet as gentlemen of fortune we enjoy plenty and satisfaction, pleasure and ease, liberty and power... so what man with a sensible mind would choose the former life, when the only hasard we pirates run is a sour look from those without strength or splendour! Now, I have been among you six weeks, and in that time I have adopted your outlook as my own, and with so fierce a conviction that it may frighten you to see your passions reflected from me in so stark a light. But... if it's a captain you see in me now, aye then... I'll be your bloody captain! For I have dipped my hands in muddied waters, and withdrawing them find 'tis better to be a commander than a common man!"

James Kidd or Mary Read is awesomeness itself. When was the last time a woman got to be not only The Mentor to the hero but also to another woman, Anne Bonny, who she empowers from a waitress to a fellow Back-to-Back Badasses and who serves as her Number Two while she Captains Jack's operation more or less. And while she's pregnant. Alas Too Cool to Live.

Adewale is pretty awesome. He's the Only Sane Man, down and earthy, and a good friend. But he won't be Edward's enabler and tells him straight up, that he'd rather be an Assassin than sail under a selfish asshole like him. It's great to see a character who blossoms from The Lancer into a Hero of Another Story in the same game.

His Establishing Character Moment? Directly after he and Edward break out of their chains, despite having just met, he proceeds to fill the other half of Bash Brothers with Edward. Edward whistles for one guard's attention, chokes him behind from the corner, then Adewale rushs straight in and deals with the other target, repeated for a total of three times - there's even one case where it's two men he takes down without raising the alarm, with little effort. note And due to the Animus's mechanics, this is very close to how they canonically escaped.

Retroactively, Woodes Roger's assassination is this, as at the end of the game it's revealed he survived.This makes him the second person to have survived a direct hidden blade assassination, in addition to Shakulu. And more than that, Shakulu had heavy armor; Rogers had none of that.

The whole randomness of the game world can cause some truly awesome fights, like attacking an island fort during a storm while a water spout circles it, messing up with your aim and forcing you to a distance where it's even harder to make your shots hit... unless you have the luck, timing, and/or bravado to get in close and attack from the opposite side as the deadly vortex. If you're lucky, the spout might attend to any enemy ships trying to interfere with your assault.

It's very much possible to defeat El Tiburon with nothing more than a pistol (or four). This in turn crosses into Fridge Brilliance: El Tiburon is a heavily armored brute who fights more like someone from Ezio's time (though he also has a pistol of his own), but that means nothing when Edward can just whittle him down him with bullets without ever crossing blades. In a way, it shows just how much the old forms of combat have given way to newer ones.

The re-birth so to speak of Edward Kenway and The El Dorado into a full-fledged pirate captain and pirate ship, The Jackdaw, respectively. The whole sequence is something to watch, especially when he decides to outrun the hurricane that sinks the rest of the legendary Spanish Treasure Fleet. The music, the thunder, the waterspouts, the killer waves, hell the whole thing seems like the God of the Seas himself is testing the worth of this ragtag pirate crew. Makes it pretty clear who Connor gets his "do the impossible" mentality from.

Upgrading the Jackdaw and seeing its growth overtime is awesome, including for those with an eye for detail, since most hull/weapon upgrades are visibly represented. You go from cowering in terror from a single brig, to using tactics, mortars and broadside cannons to take out five(-or-more) ships in a single battle.

Sure, Blackbeard dies - but he goes out in a blaze of glory, being chopped down on a burning ship...

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